The Educational Consultancy Association of Nepal (ECAN), one of the many monitoring agents, is the largest and the first umbrella organization of educational consultancies in Nepal, established in August 29, 1997 by seven educational consultancies. A non-profit organization, ECAN now has 250 members of around 800 functional consultancies based all over Nepal.
Republica’s Abhishek Dev spoke to Rajendra Baral, General Secretary of ECAN.
Why was ECAN established?
It has been more than a decade since ECAN was established. The major reason for establishing this organization of professionals was to monitor, regulate and guide the consultancies to function appropriately and with morality. Since there are no rules and regulations by the government regarding the activities of consultancies, there was a need for an organization like ECAN for the same to reduce the mal-practice of certain consultancies and make people aware of them. ECAN thus aims to regain the lost reputation of the industry.
What are the objectives of ECAN?
Regulation of educational consultancies so that they provide proper and professional consultancy is our main objective. We also try to bring back the respectability of the industry and provide students, guardians, and the educational consultancies themselves with benefits through our large network. ECAN also tries to curb fraudulent activities of consultancies and raise awareness among the masses of how to protect themselves from such fraudulent organizations.
How can a consultancy be a member of ECAN?
All educational consultancies, in or out of the valley, are open to be a member of ECAN. However, since we want to promote only ethical consultancies, we have basic requirements that must be met before they can be a member. For example, the consultancy must be at least one year old, should have a good reputation in the society, should not be involved in any malpractice before, and should be willing to promote fairness and transparency. The consultancies should also be a representative of at least two colleges and must have qualified counselors and provide high service quality.
How are the activities of the consultancies monitored?
We have a monitoring committee that checks the activities through inspections of the consultancies frequently. Apart from that, we are also very open to suggestions and complaints from students and guardians. This helps us know about any malpractice in which a consultancy is involved. Our member consultancies are guided by a “code of conduct” which must be followed by our members under all conditions.
How can a person complain and what actions are taken if a consultancy is found guilty?
If a student or a guardian is not satisfied with the service of our member consultancies or think they are being cheated, they can register a complaint and send us a letter with their exact complaint and the name of the consultancy to be taken action against. After appropriate investigation, we take action against our member consultancies by either suspending them from our organization or even expelling them. Though there have been more than 15 cases where we have suspended our guilty member consultancies, we still haven’t had any cases where we have had to take the extreme step of expelling them.
For example, we have fixed the amount that our member consultancy can charge from Rs 15,000 to Rs 35,000 as service charge. If the amount charged exceeds this, we seek an explanation providing details regarding why the amount was charged. There have been cases where some of our members charged exorbitant amounts, for which we have taken steps against and have forced them to refund the extra amount to the respective person.
It has been more than a decade since ECAN was established. How is ECAN evolving?
We now have realized that our organization has social responsibility. Hence, we are planning to provide scholarships to dalit, poor, marginalized and deserving students for their higher education. This is a step to provide equal opportunities for all. Apart from that, we now aim to expand our reach beyond ‘education abroad’. We have realized that Nepal, like Cyprus, can be an educational hub and have been urging the government to take steps towards providing an international standard education that is transparent, fair and apolitical. If the government can ensure that, we can help the government bring students from abroad. Apart from large revenue from the students, it will increase the number of tourists as well. We will then be promoting brain-gain instead of brain-drain.
How is ECAN trying to achieve what it wants?
From June 4 to 6, 10 to 13 and 17 to 19, we are organizing an education and career fair with Republica as the title sponsor in Pokhara, Kathmandu and Narayanghat. This fair is different than previous and other fairs because this fair will include not only educational consultancies and foreign college representatives but also representatives from local colleges and embassies. Of around 200 stalls there, we are expecting some 100 stalls to be focused on education in Nepal. This is because we have realized that instead of asking all guardians to send their children abroad, we must provide them with information of options available in Nepal as well. Only after considering all options in Nepal itself, should a guardian send their child abroad. This fair will provide students and guardians with information of all the choices available.
What is ECAN’s future plan?
Our immediate future plan is to help promote Nepal Tourism Year 2011 by selecting some of our students as ambassadors of Nepal in foreign colleges. We have been suggesting Nepal Tourism Board, to provide these ambassadors with pamphlets, brochures, CDs and other materials so that they can promote tourism in Nepal at their respective colleges.
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